Bird Flu Research Details To Be Released

Despite fear that terrorists could the information to start epidemics, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced they would release the “full details” of experiments done last year by research teams, at Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the virus known as H5N1, that made the deadly bird flu virus more contagious.

Scientists around the world have been divided on the subject, and there has been a moratorium on the research and its publication once news of the experiments was known. Some urged that the results be published in full; while others say the research is so dangerous that it should never even have been done, much less published. But bio-security experts fear mutated forms of the virus that the researchers created could escape or fall into the wrong hands and be used to spark a pandemic worse than the 1918/19 outbreak of Spanish flu that killed as many as 40-million people. But on the other hand, the Unites States representative to the organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that any theoretical risk of the virus being used by terrorists is far outweighed by the ”real and present danger” of similar flu viruses in the wild

Remember that biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. It is meant to incapacitate or kill an adversary. The level of damage depends primarily on the biological agent’s transmissibility, lethality and susceptibility to countermeasures.

Be aware that H5N1 is a highly contagious deadly strain of bird flu. It is considered so dangerous it could potentially lead to a global pandemic. The virus has killed about 60 per cent of those it has infected, making it one of the most lethal known forms of influenza in modern history. Until recently it was thought the virus could be transmitted between humans only through close physical contact, but the Netherlands team, led by virologist Ron Fouchier have been able to mutate a deadly strain of bird flu in a laboratory, so that it can be transmitted through the air with the potential to infect and kill millions of people. Consider that al-Qaeda’s arm in Yemen was said to be actively recruiting specialists in many forms of terror and they had even openly discussed deploying deadly poisons in an article titled “Tips for Our Brothers in the United States of America,” in its online English-language journal, “Inspire.”